We are people first

We are people first before our wants and needs. Even though I didn’t know about my disability or what my needs were, I believed I mattered. It was important to me that I was able to say what I felt. We must talk about the things that matter.

Just because people may have what seems like a happy upbringing, doesn’t mean they won’t struggle with mental health, or have their own set of needs. What seems right from the outset, is not what happens with our emotions. Even the happiest people will struggle with their emotions, they will still have wants and needs.

We must all do more to focus on each other. Where we may cope better, we must do more to think about and put others first. We are people first, before our stories ever hit the headlines. It is important we learn to take the time to think about others, even if we’re not in a position to put others first.

As ‘my story’ shows, in a world where we have to find our voice, to be able to speak, or may still have no voice and have to find our voice, we are still people first.

6 thoughts on “We are people first”

Yes, it would be great if I felt like I could actually speak my mind, which didn’t seem to matter when I was a child!

You eventually get to the point of why bother, when nobody listened, especially the people who were supposed to listen. It gives you the feeling of being invisible because you could literally sit in the middle of the room screaming and they wouldn’t flinch.

It still breaks my heart today, when I see young children who have that look of sadness when they’re trying to talk to a parent and they’re pretty much ignored.

With the world I grew up in, what we were feeling didn’t seem to matter. It gave me the sense of always being powerless, like what I wanted in life didn’t really matter. My counselor pointed this out, especially in my current relationship, as well as all the others where I let them run my life.

“You live what you know!” is the expression that comes to mind. Even as much as I have hated it, there was a certain familiarity in that type of relationship. People wonder why we put up with it, like why people stay in abusive relationships, but when it’s what you’re used to, subconsciously you almost don’t know any different!

I used to judge those people myself, until I looked at the fact that I was doing the same thing. When you always have that “I’m not worthy!” feeling in the back of your mind, it destroys any sense of thinking about what it is that YOU want. I was trained to always think about someone else’s feelings first, even when I hated it and it so wasn’t fair.

The hardest part for me now is letting go of the time I wasted and the things I didn’t do that I should have. The reality is that I am actually human, not a machine, so I need to start acting like one!

Thanks Randy. Yes it’s almost as if we come to believe all of these things, but it’s only when we come to think about our life that we come to realise all of the things you talk about in your response.

I think people tend to forget we’re people first. We tend to be judged on our mistakes, our baggage , but that’s nothing to do with the individual; the person.

All we can do is concentrate on ourselves and ignore the hype. Stories never make or define a person. Your past certainly doesn’t define you that way. I see an inspirational person, who made it through and that’s something to be celebrated.

I have this feeling in the back of my mind that I must suppress how I feel.

I think it’s my reluctance to be judged within the walls of someone else’s mental heath prism. We are in the same but vastly different world of how we view things, and I cannot afford the luxury of vulnerability by discussing things that really matter to me.

The problem is we don’t want ours thoughts to be used against us in a world where we’re not people first.

To be honest I gave up trying years ago. There seemed little point. People tend to judge anyway; whatever we do; whatever we say, they will always have an opinion on our actions and on us.

I think it’s always important to say what it is we feel, because not only does that help us sort our thoughts out, but it also gets what we’re dealing with out into the open and that allows us to stay well for longer.

The people that matter to us, the ones we can trust never stand in judgment. The sad reality is that whatever we do, the world will always view what people do first, no matter what. We only have to open a newspaper or listen to the news to quantify those facts.

I believe it’s always important to talk. When we talk about how we feel, we stay true to ourselves.

Thanks Maria. You have much right as a non-disabled person to complain about what you deal with, probably more so than an able-bodied person.

I personally think and have gone through the experience myself that the people we come to rely on like our families, cannot or don’t know how to deal with what we have to deal with and that makes us feel as though we can’t or have no right to complain.

It literally is how other people make us feel. We end up having to prove to ourselves that we’re strong, because no-one’s listening.